


A Striking Position to Take: SPN and economic instability

by amonitrate



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-26 00:22:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14390202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amonitrate/pseuds/amonitrate
Summary: A refutation of the argument that class difference is not addressed in the early seasons of Supernatural.





	A Striking Position to Take: SPN and economic instability

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2010, originally posted to LJ.

In a book review in the most recent issue of the [TWC journal](http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/175/161), Alysa Hornick makes the following remark in reference to one of the collection's essays, "Blue Collar Ghost Hunters": _It's a striking position to take when one considers how little the topic of class difference is directly addressed within the show itself..._.

I haven't read the essay Hornick refers to, but taken on its own as a statement about _Supernatural_ , I felt it was incredibly lazy analysis. Granted, this was a throwaway remark in a book review and not meant to be an exploration of class in _Supernatural_ , but my experience of the show seems so drastically different from Hornick's that I was inspired to rant.

The reason for my strong reaction? SPN has been to me what I've understood _Buffy_ was to other people -- a representation of the problems they faced in metaphorical form. However much I enjoyed _Buffy_ , it was mostly on an intellectual level -- I never got fannish about it, and I always wondered why. I realized that most of the problems the characters faced in _Buffy_ weren't my problems. Buffy lived in a world I didn't see myself reflected in, with the exception of Willow's early social issues. These weren't my problems, because however universal the adolescent challenges supposedly were, these kids were all uniformly portrayed as upper-middle to upper class. Despite the divorced status of Buffy's parents, and the allusions to dysfunction in Xander's family, and the passive neglect by Willow's parents, the focus of the show for the most part stayed well away from family dysfunction. Perhaps that dysfunction was what caused the Scoobies to band together; but it was not addressed very well by the show, which was more interested in the Scoobies themselves than in where they came from.

Other shows weren't much better - I never realized this until now, but in a very real way, I don't think I've ever felt my experience has been well represented on television -- with, perhaps, the exception of _Roseanne_ , which comes closest, and _Friday Night Lights_ , which criminally I haven't paid enough attention to.

Back to SPN. Most tv shows supposedly about the teenage or childhood experience (and most tv shows in general, for the past 20 or so years) have revolved around upper-middle to upper class people. People with white collar jobs; or people with supposedly blue collar jobs but inexplicably white collar lifestyles (see nearly all family sitcoms since _Roseanne_ ). These people don't wear second hand clothes or buy generics or use food stamps or even rent their houses. These people are never laid off or out of work. If they have addictions, they're glamorized, dramatized, the After School Special.

They crash and burn in a way we're supposed to all learn from, recover near instantly, having Become Better People. They don't have the long stretch of years and slow accumulation of damage. They don't show the results of economic and emotional pressure over time, and how the two work together. People escape their circumstances and never look back; they don't get caught in it, unable to recognize what's happening, because they're too close.

But this is one of the first things that hooked me about SPN: The most understated aspect about the show is the economic circumstance of the family, after the demon kills Mary. The class issue in SPN is more complicated than I've seen people give it credit for, because the Winchesters are clearly portrayed as experiencing _downward mobility_. John and Mary in the pilot live a solidly middle-class life. John is co-owner of a blue-collar business, they live in a big comfortable suburban house. Then the fire happens, and they're thrust into an entirely new lifestyle.

Setting aside the why of it (John's revenge quest) it's such a clear parallel with families who undergo some kind of trauma and financial crisis, whether medical or losing a job or a fire or a death -- and end up on the streets. The Winchesters are homeless for the rest of their lives. Somewhat out of choice, but I think getting too distracted by the uniqueness of the Winchesters as Hunters makes it too easy to ignore that other hunter families don't live like the Winchesters. The Campbells didn't. Bobby doesn't. The Harvelles didn't. John's choice to go on the road with his young children, to give up regular employment and a stable home, can be read as a parallel to other catastrophic experiences that effect people's economic status, whether this is illness or injury or psychological issues, etc, all of which can make it difficult to hold a job or live anything but a nomadic life.

While I feel the main underlying theme of SPN since the first season has been family dysfunction (as I've explored briefly [elsewhere](http://amonitrate.livejournal.com/492052.html)), one of the important exacerbating factors in this dysfunction is the Winchesters' economic situation. It isn't that economically comfortable families do not experience dysfunction; but that economic instability is a huge additional stressor on family systems, usually making any dysfunction worse. In the case of SPN, they are so intertwined that to address one without acknowledging the other is a major oversight.

Now, to come back to the quote that sparked this off:

_It's a striking position to take when one considers how little the topic of class difference is directly addressed within the show itself..._

What strikes _me_ about this statement is how oblivious it seems to how SPN does indeed address class, and class difference. Often directly, but more commonly it goes unremarked upon within the show, because the show is not _about_ class, in any obvious sense, any more than _Buffy_ was _about_ a certain strain of adolescent experience. No, both shows are explicitly about monsters and the people who battle them. That's what they are _directly_ about. They are _indirectly_ about other things. One of the things SPN is often (especially in the first season, and in the flashbacks in later seasons) indirectly about is economic instability. And like most of the themes in _Supernatural_ , this plays out most strongly in the relationship between the two brothers.

For me, to allow the pov that SPN doesn't address class difference to go unchallenged in a supposedly scholarly journal article is problematic. Scholars should be reading past the explicit and direct statements made by the text, no? After all, many of the most popular meta essays in fandom (as well as some of the articles in TWC) center around slash, which requires delving into the deeper levels of the text, since it is very rarely if ever directly addressed. We can't do the same for the issue of class? We have to actually analyze the text beyond the dialog to see these things, because the show mostly doesn't talk about it outright. It isn't interested in talking about it outright; doesn't mean it's not there.

**Here is a totally unsystematic and off the top of my head list of all the ways in which I feel SPN directly or indirectly addresses class and class difference:**

\--The Winchesters live in their car, and a series of cheap motels. Several times they have been shown to squat in abandoned houses. At least once they have slept in the car itself. The instability of housing is a class issue: people on the economic edge tend to move around frequently, whether to find cheaper rent or due to eviction or the pressures of finding adequate employment.

\--They get by on fraud, gambling, and impersonation. They're grifters, basically. Dean in particular has a distain for cops and other law officers, mostly due to their obliviousness to what he sees are the real dangers around them, but probably also due to the risk they pose to the family business (and extrapolating, to the family unit when John left his underaged children alone for weeks at a time). Their legitimacy as authority figures is undermined in his eyes due to their ignorance. Dean is an outlaw in the old-fashioned frontier sense, because in the space where he exists, the world of fighting monsters, the law is useless at best, but more typically destructive and dangerous. Distrust of the police is a common theme for economically unstable people.

\--There are often distinct class differences between the brothers and who they help, most explicitly displayed in "Skin" when they assist Sam's college friend Rebecca. Watch Dean's body language as they are ushered into the large, suburban manse. Watch Dean's behavior in "Provenance," in the auction house, or with Bela in "Red Skies at Night" when he's asked to wear a tux. Nothing is explicitly stated, but Jensen Ackles' acting makes it clear that Dean is uncomfortable and defensive in upper-class settings. Though Sam is more comfortable, he is shown as unfamiliar with ordering wine at a classy restaurant, also in "Provenance."

\--Their wardrobe is sharply limited. They usually wear worn, faded clothes that look as if they were bought at the Salvation Army. Dean especially wears multiple layers, a sign of someone used to living and working in environments where the temperature isn't stable, in all weather. Unless they are undercover, they tend to wear clothes that don't draw attention. In the first season, Dean explicitly complains about having to wear a suit, and is distinctly uncomfortable.

\--With the exception of Sam, the circle of hunters is by their speech and appearance coded as what regular television would consider to be uneducated, lower class people, even if they have, like Ash, attended MIT. White trash, even -- look at Bobby's battered trucker caps. The important distinction is that all of these characters prove themselves to be highly educated in their chosen trade -- hunting. The hunters all know enough latin to exorcise. Bobby in particular has a huge and esoteric library, and speaks Japanese to boot. And this is in comparison to the people the brothers help, who are most often educated and comfortably middle class, yet totally oblivious to the reality of the supernatural things that threaten them.

\--The vital importance of the car to their lives: For people on the economic edge outside of major cities, the car is vital to survival, to getting to a job.

  **Most of the poignant examples of class difference are located in the tensions between Stanford-educated, law school bound Sam, and GED-holding Dean.**

\--How much more direct can you get than Dean and Sam eating Funyons on Christmas? By themselves, in a shitty motel room? With Dean stealing presents because otherwise there would be none? Or the brothers, in the present day in the same episode, buying each other gifts from a gas station market -- not just for the humor, but because they clearly can't afford anything else. Or the flashbacks that show how Dean tries to protect Sam against not just the reality that John hunts monsters, but from the economic reality that there is no Christmas to be had.

\--Sam laughing off Dean's homemade EMF, or his fear of flying? Dean missing some of Sam's references? Sam's surprise that yes, Dean has read a book, and one by Vonnegut to boot. Sam shoving Dean aside to do a computer search "better" in the library in season 1.

\--Dean's fixation on Sam's leaving the family behind to attend college as a betrayal. Some part of this has to do with feeling inadequate, that Sam has left him behind, feeling less than and dumb. Dean is explicitly coded as working class, and in the first season especially there are constant subtle reminders of the clash between Sam going to college and Dean working with his hands. The culture clash of being the first to go to college, and how that changes your relationship with your family, is one of the important characterizations of Sam in season 1, as is the way he gradually takes over the research and exposition dump of the "lore."

\--Sam's comment to Dean in the pilot: _So how’d you pay for that stuff? You and Dad still running credit card scams?_ As if he wasn't a beneficiary of it for years. The slight note of disdain in his voice says a great deal about the distance he feels from how he grew up.

\--Dean is left alone to take care of Sam from a young age, starting at the oldest nine ("Something Wicked"). Due to John's obsessive paranoia and neglect, sure, but also a signifier of people who can't afford child care. This was played up again in "After School Special" where Dean's girlfriend expresses shock and compassion that Dean takes care of Sam for weeks while his father is "working" -- and Dean doesn't understand her reaction at all, because this is normal for him.

\--Dean is often nervous or awkward when something happens outside of his usual frame of reference, when compared to Sam's relative ease in these situations because he's had a broader experience of the world while at Stanford. Dean's lack of any kind of friendship in his life outside of his family is another aspect of this. His utter surprise that Sam is keeping up with Stanford friends in "Skin." Dean appears to have never lived anywhere long enough to make friends worth keeping up with; and has defensively convinced himself attachments are useless.

\--The reactions of both brothers to their surprise sibling Adam in "Jump the Shark" -- especially Dean's desire to protect Adam from the reality of the instability of his and Sam's lives, as well as his anger over John's treating Adam like a normal kid, and possibly some jealousy from both Sam and Dean for the fact of the stability of Adam's childhood -- John took Adam to baseball games, after all, when for all their traveling Dean mentions never having seen the Grand Canyon.

\--Sam's surprise at Dean's comfort in prison, or his skill with children.

\--Sam's total denial of his family background when he's at college.

\--Sam's desire for a "normal, safe" life can be read as a desire for _economic_ safety and normality too. He goes to Stanford and is planning on being a lawyer. He's not just fleeing literal lack of safety, he's fleeing a lack of economic safety as well. Whereas Dean is more aware that there is no absolute guarantee of economic safety: as a young child, he experienced an abrupt economic crisis. He knows first hand, even if he was very young at the time, that the nice safe middle class life can not only be destroyed by murder at the hands of something supernatural, but also by a sudden fall into economic instability.

 I'm convinced that these things are not viewed as class indicators due to privilege. Perhaps Hornick don't recognize this accumulation as SPN "directly addressing" class because she's never experienced economic instability. Perhaps she needs class markers to be discussed in the text, in the dialog, in order to recognize what's right in front of her. My question is, how _direct_ does the evidence need to be in order to "count" as the show addressing class, if none of the examples in this essay are considered to be direct evidence?

  **So, let's look at two specific examples from the show, in dialog:**

 

1.06 "Skin":

> SHAPESHIFTER: You don’t really wanna know. (He chuckles.) I swear, the more I learn about you and your family—I thought I came from a bad background.
> 
> SAM: What do you mean, learn? (The shapeshifter stops. He grabs his head in pain and grimaces. A quick succession of audio clips from past episodes can be heard. SAM looks at the shapeshifter, confused. The shapeshifter relaxes and looks at SAM.)
> 
> SHAPESHIFTER: He’s sure got issues with you. **You got to go to college. He had to stay home. I mean, I had to stay home. With Dad. You don’t think I had dreams of my own? But Dad needed me.** Where the hell were you?

Of this example, [](https://dafnap.livejournal.com/profile)[**dafnap**](https://dafnap.livejournal.com/)  writes: _People don't go to college for a lot of reasons other than being dumb or uninterested, or just "street-smart," or the myriad of passively insulting or judge-y ways people seem to refer to Dean's lack of an education. The show straight up draws the real world parallel and it's like it NEVER HAPPENED._

_It amazing me how for a show centered around everything that gets sacrificed in the name of family, how this is ignored, and how the very direct, obvious metaphor of class in America gets overlooked because the show can't POSSIBLY be about anything other than How Awesome These Dudes Are, Right?_

Indeed, people routinely don't go to college due to family obligations or money. And even if they do go, their choices of colleges are often restricted by their economic position as well. Most poor kids don't get full rides to Stanford, in other words, no matter how smart, because for one, they don't know how to play the college admissions game, especially if they are the first to go. And in the case of Dean Winchester, when he was of the age to be applying to college, he was still his little brother's primary caretaker (see: "After School Special") -- so not only is the financial lack an issue, but he has family obligations as well; and this isn't even delving into his need to continue on with the family business or the common attitude among kids of the economically unstable that school is a waste of time or irrelevent to their everyday lives.

4.04 "Metamorphosis":

> TRAVIS  
>  Are you kidding me? You ever been really hungry?
> 
> This gets DEAN's attention, who's been looking at the papers SAM brought with him.
> 
> TRAVIS  
>  **I mean, haven't-eaten-in-days hungry?**
> 
> DEAN  
>  Yeah.
> 
> TRAVIS  
>  Yeah. Right then. So somebody slaps a big, juicy sirloin in front of you, you walking away?
> 
> DEAN looks thoughtful for a second and then admits "no" without words, only raising of eyebrows. He slowly looks over at SAM.

Maybe most viewers thought that this was just a joke on how much Dean eats. But pair this with the flashback that has Dean giving Sam the last of the coveted Lucky Charms, and with the constant visual theme of Dean eating everything in his path, and another picture emerges.

To me, this is not just for laughs. Or, maybe that was how it was intended by the show; but in the context of the show's many depictions of economic instability, it can be interpreted to have a deeper level of resonance. A restricted dietary range (Dean: hamburgers, diner food, candy, slim jims, pizza) is often typical of people on the economic edge, and reflects to me the fact that Dean was left to fend for himself and Sam. We see Young Dean feeding himself and Sam junk food, canned pasta, and cereal -- all cheap, easy to prepare, and needing no actual cooking since they were living in motels.

After bringing it up initially, I have been obtuse about how this all fits in with my life, and I assume I don't need to do so in order to prove my point. I didn't particularly want this essay to be about me, though I have to varying extents witnessed first hand many of the things I've listed here. That said, I do think that my experience of economic instability has influenced both how I interpret the show and how I reacted to Hornick's review.

In my opinion, not only does SPN portray a wide array of indicators of economic instability over the course of the series, but I'd argue that in comparison to so many current shows that explicitly do not, shows that focus mainly on the wealthy or the economically stable upper-middle class, SPN in fact does directly address class difference, just perhaps not in the way Hornick assumes it should.

As [](https://dafnap.livejournal.com/profile)[**dafnap**](https://dafnap.livejournal.com/) pointed out to me, Hornick also makes the following accusation in her review: that the author of the essay in question, "Blue Collar Ghost Hunters," _exudes a kind of reverse snobbery, touting the have-not way of life as ethically superior to one with more privilege—_ ** _the kind of life likely shared by most of the show's viewers._** And wow, is that a telling slip -- she's assuming that "most of the show's viewers" are economically privileged, have no experience with the kind of blue-collar "have-not" life that the essay she's critiquing discusses. I haven't read "Blue Collar Ghost Hunters," so though I find Hornick's entire statement problematic I hesitate to parse her accusation that the author glorifies the economically unstable way of life in a "reverse snobbery," but the assumptions inherent in the latter half of her statement makes me question her critique.

To sum up, my main points are twofold: Obliviousness to all of the ways in which SPN portrays economic instability and class difference is due to the blinders of privilege. And an inability to dig beyond "direct" references to class strikes me as not just privileged but lazy thinking as well.

 

Notes:  
(all bold emphasis is mine)

(I am not remotely trained to write academically about class, so the terms I've used here, economic instability for example, are the closest approximations I can come to how I view the Winchester's situation: not quite blue-collar due to the nomadic life, not working poor because they don't work, and lower class is just... a term I find problematic. And yet they are represented as not middle class. Clearly I have done no research to write this thing, but I would appreciate any critical remarks.)

(Episode quotes via transcripts found on [Supernatural Wiki.](http://%20%20In%20a%20book%20review%20in%20the%20most%20recent%20issue%20of%20the%20<a%20href=%22http://journal.transformativeworks.org/index.php/twc/article/view/175/161%22>TWC%20journal</a>,%20Alysa%20Hornick%20makes%20the%20following%20remark%20in%20reference%20to%20one%20of%20the%20collection%27s%20essays,%20%22Blue%20Collar%20Ghost%20Hunters%22:%20<i>It%27s%20a%20striking%20position%20to%20take%20when%20one%20considers%20how%20little%20the%20topic%20of%20class%20difference%20is%20directly%20addressed%20within%20the%20show%20itself...</i>.%20%20I%20haven%27t%20read%20the%20essay%20Hornick%20refers%20to,%20but%20taken%20on%20its%20own%20as%20a%20statement%20about%20<i>Supernatural</i>,%20I%20felt%20it%20was%20incredibly%20lazy%20analysis.%20Granted,%20this%20was%20a%20throwaway%20remark%20in%20a%20book%20review%20and%20not%20meant%20to%20be%20an%20exploration%20of%20class%20in%20<i>Supernatural</i>,%20but%20my%20experience%20of%20the%20show%20seems%20so%20drastically%20different%20from%20Hornick%27s%20that%20I%20was%20inspired%20to%20rant.%20%20The%20reason%20for%20my%20strong%20reaction?%20SPN%20has%20been%20to%20me%20what%20I%27ve%20understood%20Buffy%20was%20to%20other%20people%20--%20a%20representation%20of%20the%20problems%20they%20faced%20in%20metaphorical%20form.%20However%20much%20I%20enjoyed%20Buffy,%20it%20was%20mostly%20on%20an%20intellectual%20level%20--%20I%20never%20got%20fannish%20about%20it,%20and%20I%20always%20wondered%20why.%20I%20realized%20that%20most%20of%20the%20problems%20the%20characters%20faced%20in%20Buffy%20weren%27t%20my%20problems.%20Buffy%20lived%20in%20a%20world%20I%20didn%27t%20see%20myself%20reflected%20in,%20with%20the%20exception%20of%20Willow%27s%20early%20social%20issues.%20These%20weren%27t%20my%20problems,%20because%20however%20universal%20the%20adolescent%20challenges%20supposedly%20were,%20these%20kids%20were%20all%20uniformly%20portrayed%20as%20upper-middle%20to%20upper%20class.%20Despite%20the%20divorced%20status%20of%20Buffy%27s%20parents,%20and%20the%20allusions%20to%20dysfunction%20in%20Xander%27s%20family,%20and%20the%20passive%20neglect%20by%20Willow%27s%20parents,%20the%20focus%20of%20the%20show%20for%20the%20most%20part%20stayed%20well%20away%20from%20family%20dysfunction.%20Perhaps%20that%20dysfunction%20was%20what%20caused%20the%20Scoobies%20to%20band%20together;%20but%20it%20was%20not%20addressed%20very%20well%20by%20the%20show,%20which%20was%20more%20interested%20in%20the%20Scoobies%20themselves%20than%20in%20where%20they%20came%20from.%20%20Other%20shows%20weren%27t%20much%20better%20-%20I%20never%20realized%20this%20until%20now,%20but%20in%20a%20very%20real%20way,%20I%20don%27t%20think%20I%27ve%20ever%20felt%20my%20experience%20has%20been%20well%20represented%20on%20television%20--%20with,%20perhaps,%20the%20exception%20of%20<i>Roseanne</i>,%20which%20comes%20closest,%20and%20<i>Friday%20Night%20Lights</i>,%20which%20criminally%20I%20haven%27t%20paid%20enough%20attention%20to.%20%20Back%20to%20SPN.%20Most%20tv%20shows%20supposedly%20about%20the%20teenage%20or%20childhood%20experience%20\(and%20most%20tv%20shows%20in%20general,%20for%20the%20past%2020%20or%20so%20years\)%20have%20revolved%20around%20upper-middle%20to%20upper%20class%20people.%20People%20with%20white%20collar%20jobs;%20or%20people%20with%20supposedly%20blue%20collar%20jobs%20but%20inexplicably%20white%20collar%20lifestyles%20\(see%20nearly%20all%20family%20sitcoms%20since%20<i>Roseanne</i>\).%20These%20people%20don%27t%20wear%20second%20hand%20clothes%20or%20buy%20generics%20or%20use%20food%20stamps%20or%20even%20rent%20their%20houses.%20These%20people%20are%20never%20laid%20off%20or%20out%20of%20work.%20If%20they%20have%20addictions,%20they%27re%20glamorized,%20dramatized,%20the%20After%20School%20Special.%20%20They%20crash%20and%20burn%20in%20a%20way%20we%27re%20supposed%20to%20all%20learn%20from,%20recover%20near%20instantly,%20having%20Become%20Better%20People.%20They%20don%27t%20have%20the%20long%20stretch%20of%20years%20and%20slow%20accumulation%20of%20damage.%20They%20don%27t%20show%20the%20results%20of%20economic%20and%20emotional%20pressure%20over%20time,%20and%20how%20the%20two%20work%20together.%20People%20escape%20their%20circumstances%20and%20never%20look%20back;%20they%20don%27t%20get%20caught%20in%20it,%20unable%20to%20recognize%20what%27s%20happening,%20because%20they%27re%20too%20close.%20%20But%20this%20is%20one%20of%20the%20first%20things%20that%20hooked%20me%20about%20SPN:%20The%20most%20understated%20aspect%20about%20the%20show%20is%20the%20economic%20circumstance%20of%20the%20family,%20after%20the%20demon%20kills%20Mary.%20The%20class%20issue%20in%20SPN%20is%20more%20complicated%20than%20I%27ve%20seen%20people%20give%20it%20credit%20for,%20because%20the%20Winchesters%20are%20clearly%20portrayed%20as%20experiencing%20<i>downward%20mobility</i>.%20John%20and%20Mary%20in%20the%20pilot%20live%20a%20solidly%20middle-class%20life.%20John%20is%20co-owner%20of%20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 



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